Dedication
for my father,
TAN SOO LIAP
This book is written in Singlish, which is the patois that most Singaporeans speak to one another. It’s a tossed salad of the different languages and Chinese dialects that the country’s multiethnic population speaks—English, Malay, Mandarin, Hokkien, Teochew and more. It’s packed with attitude and humor and often is deliciously vulgar. Despite its allure, it has been the target of the Singapore government’s “Speak Good English” campaigns in the past. Fortunately, Singlish has turned out to be like a weed—it lives on.